How To Win $40 By Exploiting Your Lack Of Athletic Ability

Like
most gaming nerds, I've never exactly been a natural athlete. In three
years of playing intramural basketball, I think I scored a total of
five points. I thought I'd give wrestling a shot in high school and was
promptly injured and unable to continue. Hell, I have a bag of ice on
my knee as I type this, and I haven't even participated in so much as a
brisk walk in weeks. So yeah, long story short, I'm no LeBron James
(I'd imagine even Kevin James could beat me soundly in one-on-one).

A
couple of years ago, I ran into an issue with my friend Dom. We were
playing Wii Tennis at my apartment when he became overly exuberant and accidentally
heaved the remote into the side of my oven. The remote broke, so
naturally I requested $40 from him. Problem is...Dom is cheap. The $40
wouldn't come easy.

Cut to a few weeks down the line, and we're
significantly intoxicated at a bar in Lawrence, Kansas. We were
joking about my lack of athletic ability, and tried to imagine what a
hypothetical one-on-one contest in basketball would be like (he's really good and plays all the time). Some at
the table predicted that Dom would win without me scoring so much
as a single point. Others thought that I could pull off a lucky shot and grab the upset. As
the conversation continued, it started becoming less hypothetical and
more "let's do this tomorrow and put money on the line." After many
beers, we somehow arrived at this conclusion – we'd play to 15 by ones and
twos, and if I scored a single shot, I win the $40 he owes me. If he
beats me 15 - 0, I owe him $7. I don't remember exactly how we arrived
at those numbers, but that's what we settled on.

We arrived at
the University of Kansas rec center the next morning, notably hung
over. The money was given to our mutual friend Ben, who would score the
contest impartially and award the cash to the winner. Below is
what followed, and I apologize in advance for the image quality and
general shakiness of the footage (it was shot on a still camera by my
friend's girlfriend, who was apparently very excited about what she was
watching).